How Many People PC Game Compared to Console?

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The peak on Steam alone today was 6,192,602 players.

Here are some other statistics, somewhat outdated, but shows the trend:

PC games played by year, with % change from previous year.
2005 568,968
2006 558,074 (-2%)
2007 2,920,185 (+423%)
2008 5,857,447 (+101%)
2009 6,187,437 (+6%)
2010 15,728,587 (+154%)
2011 29,631,542 (+89%)
2012 33,355,879 (+13%)

Console games played by year, with % change from previous year.
All Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony combined, including portables.
Hardware listed is the year in which the hardware was released.
2005 48,621,847 XBox 360, PlayStation Portable 1000
2006 140,890,341 (+290%) DS Lite, PlayStation 3, Wii
2007 321,998,102 (+229%) PSP 2000, PlayStation Eye
2008 578,241,141 (+80%) PSP 3000
2009 570,507,923 (-3%) DSi, DSi XL, PSP Go, PS3 Slim
2010 614,779,227 (+8%) Kinect, 360 Slim, Playstation Move
2011 578,873,094 (-6%) 3DS, Wii Family Edition
2012 445,278,842 (-23%) 3DS XL, PlayStation Vita, Wii Mini, Wii U

Some observations:
In 2005, PC popularity was 1.17% of consoles.
In 2012, PC popularity was 7.49% of consoles.
+5863% PC gain from 2005 to 2012.
+916% combined console gains from 2005 to 2012.
PCs have increased six times as much as consoles have.
PCs are trending up much faster than consoles.

Source:
http://www.steamgifts.com/forum/YAKms/2005-2012-pc-vs-console-gaming-population-growth-rates

I won't because give my opinion on PCs vs consoles because I don't want to start a flame war or anything...
 
Being 17, high school kids don't understand PC gaming. Nor do they want to build one. Most people I know have a cheap laptop or HP desktop and don't know what building a computer, or even what a GPU is...
The only people I know that have a custom PC are the "geeks".

I hear that PC gaming is a lot more popular in college students or adults.
 
There are not too many young people, high school and younger, that play games on PC. Consoles are the easy route but don't necessarily make games more enjoyable. I am a senior in high school and gave up console gaming two years ago when I switched to PC gaming. I am very glad I did!
 


That's very true. Out of my old high school, maybe 2 or 3 people were PC gamers but practically everyone had a console in their family.
Out of my old college, there were actually quite a few PC gamers, and I don't think I heard a console even mentioned in two years.
 
Almost everyone I know that has a console to game on also has a gameworthy PC (if not always top of the line).
Most people I know that game on the PC don't own a (current/last gen) console.
I know 2 people who game on consoles whose PCs are in no way gaming machines. And I drop by them every now and again for a Fifa night.

I mean, I have a NES in the attic somewhere, most everyone else I know that games on the PC has dabbled in console gaming at some point.
 
Most of the people I know are both console and PC gamers, but I work in IT so they are all capable of building a computer for gaming. When I was in high school most were N64 gamers with some PS1 adopters. Almost nobody played games on the PC unless their parents were into games too, after all they were the ones shelling out the cash to drop a 4MB or 8MB video card in there. Only a very few at my school would have understood that statement.

I would consider myself 50/50 a year or so ago (had some hardware issues on my old build that made gaming frustrating), but haven't really used my 360 in 10-11 months, about 90% of my gaming is on a PC now.
 
Finance is most likely a pivotal factor why young people like myself and younger oftentimes choose consoles over PC. The only reason I am able to afford the PC I have now is because I work the odd painting job here and there and then I sell my old components to help pay for the new ones.
 


Price is huge. You will get better performance from a PS4 at $400 than you will with a $400 PC. That's a main reason why a lot of younger people console game. The only reason why consoles perform better than PCs at the same price point is because of game optimization. Console games are very well optimized for that specific platform, while there are too many PC setups for a game to be optimized for them all.
 
Think it has more to do with parents as mentioned, at least for younger folks. Parents are forking over the money alot of times and a console is the sensible approach. They don't see the purpose of using a computer to game on, let alone buying one with specs to game with. Also most kids want what everyone else has, and since most kids have consoles they want one to.

Can't believe I am going to say this, when I first started playing games it was the first console Atari, then the NES and so it progressed. For a household to even have a computer back then was a huge investment of money and most parents did not think it prudent when they had a work computer or the library. When I got to high school though our house finally got an old Compaq Presario and I got my first game, Star Craft. I could start a battle and do to how slow the computer was in processing leave for an hour or two and it would still be trying to process everything. So none had a gaming PC, but everyone had a console. Today I still use a console when I play with my nephews or new titles that are not released on PC, but when either of my two boys get old enough and I have the funding I will upgrade their console to a lower tiered gaming PC if they choose.
 
I am a homeschool student so I had an excuse for purchasing a computer over a console. I convinced my parents that I needed a nice computer to do my schoolwork on, and wasn't lying either. I (my parents) left me in charge of finding the right computer and I ordered a pre - built PC for $600. Since then I've learned how to build computers and found out how much cheaper it is to build a PC instead of buying a pre - assembled computer. I still did most of my gaming on a 360 though since my PC couldn't handle most games unless they were on low settings. I had a AMD Radeon 5450, Phenom II x4 955 Black Edition, and 4 GB of 1333 MHz RAM. Not a terrible price for a $600 pre - built PC but now days I could have built something far superior for far cheaper.

I've swapped almost all the old parts for better components. Although I still have the original case, HDD, and Optical Drive since they were all high - quality products. Another reason why young people own consoles instead of PC's. They don't how to build one. Even if they did they most likely would not understand the advantages of having a gaming PC.

I use my PC for everything. Music, TV shows, movies, online surfing (Tom's Hardware! :]), school work, video games, etc. I'm not even sure why I decided to become solely a PC gamer. It just kind of become a fantasy in my head to have a super awesome high - end gaming machine. It's not a fantasy anymore, it's a reality! :)
 


I'm pretty sure I also bought the exact same prebuilt for the same price (Cyberpower?), using a similar justification to my parents at the time. XD
 


That's not true. You can just google for 400 $ PCs and you will get computer with an even better performance on the same games as you will on Consoles.

 
That would be awesome if there were pre-built computers that could run next-gen games on PC for only $400 but I haven't seen any. That's probably because the parts to be able to run next-gen games at moderately high settings would exceed $400 especially if you pay for an OS, monitor, mouse, speakers, monitor, etc. I built a computer for my family that had a GTX 660, i3-4150, 4GB of RAM, and an Windows 8 64-bit OS for close to around $550 and it still isn't quite as powerful as a PS4. Companies that build pre-built computers have to charge extra for labor money so that also makes the price go up.
 
"There are not too many young people, high school and younger, that play games on PC." Well I guess I' an exception. All my friends have a PC with decent specs that they play games on. However, I am one of the lucky few who built his PC. And I'm 13.5 years old.

 


The last place I want to lug a pc to is college. I'll take a gaming laptop or a normal laptop and a console, thank you. The less bulky stuff the better.
 

 
PC gaming is better to you. The whole point of consoles was to separate out the graphics into a new device that goes it alone and more efficiently than a general purpose computer. That is why they exist.

That existence is justified by insane sales, fun games, and good-looking graphics (NOT as good as a decent game PC but darn good if you are older like me and can put in perspective how far they have come.)

And we should be thankful for that. The reason GTA VI is going to be awesome is because of the loads of $$$ console users give to devs for that game which benefits everyone. Honestly, the only reason I use pc is because I'm a tech junkie. I play gta V on my pc and it's great and I play it on my brother's ps4 hooked to a samsung 55" tv and it's great. And he makes like 12x what I make per year. It's not a money thing. It's personal preference. Anyone can save for awhile and get the sweet rig they want if that is what they are into. Some people just choose not to. They have shaky hands/don't want to get the tools/thermal paste, whatever.

I have a pc and i spend money on controllers because I prefer them. And honestly it'd be really nice if we could get a decent Forza/GT type racer on PC. NFS is garbage and Project Cars is good but too much of a sim. So where's the pc master race there? Stop with that sophmoric phrase. Where's the pc master race when I want to play some baseball seeing that the season is starting up? Oh that's right, Sony owns those rights. People act like console is trash and for someone who grew up with NES/Atari you should know that they are pretty gorgeous now unless you have one sitting next to a high-end pc. Also, obsessive types tend to go nuts the minute nvidia releases a new card and they sell their old gpu for pennies on the dollar. LOL @ your steam achievements being worth $$ to people. That's amazing.
 
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